Cooler Master HAF XM review

The HAF in this miditower case’s name stands for ‘high airflow’ and it’s a term well deserved: this case has more fans than a U2 arena concert. Straight out of the box there are twin 200mm units at the top another 120mm on the rear and one last 200mm fan on the front. As if that wasn’t enough there’s room for several more but you’d probably need to tether the case to stop it lifting off.

More fans than a U2 arena concert.

The space within is well utilised with room for the largest video cards once several of the nine internal drive bays are removed. Despite their all-plastic construction the tool-less mounting mechanisms for the bays are excellent and they can even handle 2.5in SSDs without an adapter. We’re not so sure about the large plastic shroud that sits next to the PSU used to hide the spaghetti-fied mess of power cables but thankfully it can be easily removed.

The front panel includes the usual basics: twin USB 3.0 twin USB 2.0 and headphone/mic jacks. Less basic is the inclusion of twin removable 3.5in bays accessed from the front as well as a speed control button for the case fans.

Our only complaint is the prolific use of plastic throughout this case which looks a bit cheap compared to similarly priced metal cases. It’s hardy enough though so it’ll come down to a matter of personal taste. Regardless this case has some of the best cooling around at this price point a godsend for those packing multiple GPUs and an overclocked CPU.